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In a cave, on a hill near Mysore in South India, lives a holy man. Such Hindu holy men who renounce their worldly belongings to become monks are called swamis. This swami has a long beard, red clothing, dreadlocKs and stick thin legs. His cave is neatly. done up in red and blue tiles. He spends hIS time attending to his altar, making offerings and singing devotional songs. The altar is vast and clean and focused around a large stone Shiva statue. When he looks towards his alter, the swami', eyes go soft. They take on a look of happiness. In the evenings, when people climb the hill to visit him, he immediately offers them thick, sweet chai. Then he begins to chant Hindu scriptures, beating time on a plastic tub of sugar sweets, which he gives out to devotees who come to receive his blessing. Usually there are a few people up there with him, but one night I caught him alone and had a chance to talk with him before he began chanting. "What did you do before you became a swami?" "I was a journalist, working in Bombay." "Then what happened?" "When I turned 28, I gave it all up and moved to this cave." "Why did you give it up?" "Because I wanted to do better work." Somehow, I could relate to this. Sometimes we need to leave behind all that is familiar and safe and financially secure in order to grow. I did this last spring. For four happy and challenging years, I was blue's executive edi- tor. As blue grew, we began to inch toward a dream Amy Schrier and I shared since my first days there: to be able to contribute to blue from some far-flung corner of the globe. I have never been an "office person" but I was willing to let the explorer in me lie dormant while we grew blue. In spring 2002, I felt like I'd hit a plateau that I wasn't sure I'd ever leave if I stayed where I was. I felt the urge to try something new, to take different risks. The time seemed right to bring the original dream into action: India was calling me. I packed my yoga mat and laptop and headed to Mysore, to study yoga wirh my teacher there. As a foreigner in India, nothing is easy. I got sick, my fair coloring attracted attention on the street, I had to keep a sharp eye on my belongings, the trains were exhausting. But this is why we travel. To put ourselves in challenging situations and come out of them stronger, wiser, doing better work. It took me three weeks to be able to simply function-to cross the road without fearing for my life, to know what to eat and with which hand, to e11ler a temple withour offending anyone. It took me three weeks to begin the process of de tangling my Western programmed mind. But suddenly, overnight, I was able to see patterns in the chaos. The way people drive, for instance, it's not random. It's just different to the way we drive in the West. And after a month, I was able to converse with the swami on the hill. I've noticed that this always happens when we take risks: things just seem to unfold naturally. The most impor- tant lesson is taking that first step. This reminds me of a Rumi poem I once read: " ... birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. How do they learn it? They fall, and falling, they're given wings ... " The trick is to take the risk, to use those plateaus upon which we find ourselves every now and again. They prompt us to take the next leap. CLAIRE HOCHACHKA claire@bluemagazine.com